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UK Prime Minister Theresa May announces intention to hold general election

theguardian.com

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Re: UK Prime Minister Theresa May announces intention to hold general election

#231

Post by awjr »

gtirloni wrote: post #69
gideonparanoid wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of that grass roots support is young & as a result has much less weight for voting, unfortunately.

Unless older people's votes get counted twice, how does the young have less weight for voting? As an outsider, the news that got to me was that older people simply showed up to vote (and others didn't).

As you get older you get more politically active. I'm guessing the retired have more time on their hands.

The young just aren't too bothered. Have a feeling, with Brexit, the biggest losers are the young and I hope that there is at least some semblance that they can do something about it this time.

Re: UK Prime Minister Theresa May announces intention to hold general election

#232

Post by WickyNilliams »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #75
Silhouette wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Labour Party establishment have tried to dethrone Corbyn before and failed. He's an odd case. He commands a lot of influence among Labour members and to some extent the unions (who have significant ties to and influence on the Labour Party here). This makes him more-or-less untouchable as party leader. However, he's loathed by most of the party's current MPs, who are politicians and know he's going to be a liabil…

I was a Corbyn supporter, on the basis that we'd had too many Labour leaders who went against the wishes of the members and supported Tory policy. Then on Brexit, he went against the wishes of the members and supported Tory policy. Needless to say I'm no longer a supporter. Of course, it's easy to forget that all the other leadership candidates and challengers would have done the same. I'd love to see the scenario in…

> Then on Brexit, he went against the wishes of the members and supported Tory policy.

May was campaigning to remain before she was appointed leader. And said categorically she would not call a snap election. The lack of conviction is equal parts depressing and hilarious

Re: UK Prime Minister Theresa May announces intention to hold general election

#233

Post by grey-area »

beaconstudios wrote: post #220
grey-area wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not quite as simple as that. Much of the country is prosperous but still voted leave, many working class people live in cities and voted remain, and it's quite hard to define working class now in a country which gets ~10% of its GDP from industry and most of it from services. There's stronger signs of a generational split, and a rural/city split than a simple rich poor split and of course each area has substanti…

> Unfortunately such a nuanced reality doesn't fit into a sound byte and people prefer to neatly put their opponents in a reductive box > lots of people who are not nationalists voted for Brexit lots of people who are not particularly racist voted for Brexit Sounds like you're doing the exact same thing. Are the majority of Brexit voters racist and nationalist (assuming you consider nationalism a negative)?

Are the majority of Brexit voters racist and nationalist (assuming you consider nationalism a negative)?

I don't think so no. I do think that should be clear from the text you have quoted.

Re: UK Prime Minister Theresa May announces intention to hold general election

#234

Post by Silhouette »

irb wrote: post #96
Silhouette wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trouble is, the Lib Dems under Farron have essentially become a single-issue party. That decision potentially alienates about 1/3 of their previous voter base who voted to Leave, as well as those who did want to Remain but either don't believe in overriding a popular referendum on democratic principles or don't feel strongly enough on the issue to disrupt things further. Given that we're talking about the Lib Dem…

I don't think it alienates any of their base. The Lib Dems have always been hugely pro-Europe, I doubt that anyone who voted Leave would have been a supporter in the first place.

I don't think it alienates any of their base.

FWIW, I know from immediate personal contacts that it does, and not in entirely trivial numbers. I'm in one of the most pro-Remain areas of the country, but also a LD/Lab marginal, so it will be interesting to see what happens as a result. I suspect it won't make much difference here, but if the same effect is evident in more moderate parts of the country, it could actually hurt them.

Re: UK Prime Minister Theresa May announces intention to hold general election

#235

Post by makomk »

pjc50 wrote: post #194
MatthiasP wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The desire for a trade war with the UK is not exactly high on the continent, especially considering the debt crisis is still looming over Brussels. The UK will probably get a deal like Norway and will be better off without Brussels. But then many other EU countries will ask: Who actually needs the political union?

"Brussels" is not in debt. The monetary union has serious problems, but not all the countries in the EU are part of it.

Most of the countries in the EU are in the Eurozone too. The UK is pretty much the last major economy in the EU that's outside the Eurozone, and one of only two EU members that are not in theory obliged to join it as soon as they're able to.

Re: UK Prime Minister Theresa May announces intention to hold general election

#236

Post by Silhouette »

alkonaut wrote: post #225
Silhouette wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people claimed they regretted voting brexit after it became clear the brexit camp actually won. This is mostly just wishful thinking on the part of the Remain side. Opinion polls have pretty consistently shown very little change in overall sentiment on Brexit. In many cases they seem to have observed marginally more regret among Leave voters than Remain voters, but the numbers were small enough in both cases…

I always wondered how many realized that "leave" would mean the union is dissolved (The Kingdom, that is - not the European union), and of give those circumstances would rather have voted remain, to keep the UK intact?

I always wondered how many realized that "leave" would mean the union is dissolved

Can you clarify what you meant here?

Re: UK Prime Minister Theresa May announces intention to hold general election

#237

Post by tehwalrus »

smcl wrote: post #185
tehwalrus wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vote Lib Dem. Seriously. I am a candidate in very north london, we're all organised for this possibility.

Why vote Lib Dem? If the last election turned out slightly differently and the Conservatives still needed the coalition, I bet they'd be out happily singing the praises of Brexit to us all, and walking back their campaign promises. They previously always had a "were not like Labour/Con" cred, but the coalition showed that this simply is not true

You don't understand the Lib Dems if you think we'd have voted for Brexit. Especially under Clegg.

Re: UK Prime Minister Theresa May announces intention to hold general election

#238

Post by ZeroGravitas »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #177
Nursie wrote: post #83

In my fantasy of UK politics, the centre and centre-left parties would form an opposition coalition ahead of the poll, proposing some radical reforms like PR, as well as some socially progressive policies like reigning in the surveillance state, thoroughly reviewing the drug laws, reviewing basic income as an idea and instituting some sort of evidence-basis mandate for law-making. I realise this is a pipe-dream, howe…

The SNP would never go for PR.

It's in their manifesto and they've campaigned for it for years.

Re: UK Prime Minister Theresa May announces intention to hold general election

#239

Post by beaconstudios »

grey-area wrote: post #233
beaconstudios wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately such a nuanced reality doesn't fit into a sound byte and people prefer to neatly put their opponents in a reductive box > lots of people who are not nationalists voted for Brexit lots of people who are not particularly racist voted for Brexit Sounds like you're doing the exact same thing. Are the majority of Brexit voters racist and nationalist (assuming you consider nationalism a negative)?

Are the majority of Brexit voters racist and nationalist (assuming you consider nationalism a negative)? I don't think so no. I do think that should be clear from the text you have quoted.

your quote seemed to imply that it should come as a surprise that there are non-racist Brexit voters. As a pro-Brexit voter myself I'm used to being on the receiving end of that kind of inflammatory rhetoric so if that wasn't your intention then I apologise.

Re: UK Prime Minister Theresa May announces intention to hold general election

#240

Post by Silhouette »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #171
Baeocystin wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now that Article 50 has been triggered, isn't Brexit a done deal but for the negotiating? (I'm not in the UK, apologies if this is a common question.) [edit] Thanks for the answers!

There is quite a wide range of opinions on the desired outcome of the negotiations, often referred to as either a soft or hard brexit.

It's possibly worth mentioning for those not closely following UK news that "soft Brexit" now usually seems to mean "remaining a member of the Single Market", and "hard Brexit" usually seems to mean "anything less than that".

I don't personally think this is a very useful distinction. By this definition, a soft Brexit is what for example the Lib Dems are advocating at the moment. However, I think it is also highly unlikely to happen, because to a first approximation it is leaving-in-name-only and thus probably an untenable position for the government to adopt politically. The entire spectrum of other possibilities, from retaining relatively close ties in some respects up to completely walking away with no deal at all, then fall under the single banner of hard Brexit, but treating such widely different possible outcomes as equivalent doesn't seem to be very useful (unless for political reasons you want to try to equate them anyway, I suppose).

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